Suddenly Poor

More Americans Turn To Shelters, Public Aid

LOS ANGELES — From her well-groomed looks and her demeanor, you`d never guess that the address on her job application or the message service that answers her calls are provided by a homeless shelter.

In short, it`s almost impossible to tell that Linda Vaught has joined a record number of Americans who have landed on the welfare rolls, that she is another digit in the tally of the recession`s victims.

``I said, `Oh Lord, I`m out here on a limb. What am I going to do?` But I`ve always looked at myself as a survivor,`` said Vaught, 41, who lost her full-time clerical job at a law firm in November and in January watched her holiday stint at a drugstore chain dry up.

``It`s a fight to stay out of poverty. I`m still fighting, but I`m just an inch away. When all you have is a bus pass and food stamps, what can you do?`` she asked.

Since January, Vaught has spent her days visiting employer after employer and moving from shelter to homeless shelter. Some 75 employers since November. A ceaseless number of nights in changing rooms.

Exactly zero jobs and no place to call home.

``Three weeks is the longest I`d ever been unemployed,`` she said.

In a sense, Vaught always has lived on the economy`s edge. She has traveled the country for years, landing job after job-waitress at a Nashville truck stop, reservationist at a Dallas hotel.

Almost always it was enough to pay the rent, certainly enough to survive. She never had climbed the economic ladder to success, but she also had never lost her grip-until now.

``I`ve never had problems like this before,`` said Vaught, who has been staying at Sunshine Mission, a homeless shelter and social service agency in south central Los Angeles. ``I`m out all the time looking for a job. But there`s so many people out of work that people are accepting wages they wouldn`t normally accept.``

Two months ago, Vaught took a step she never had taken before; she applied for public aid. She joined a record number of Californians receiving general relief from the state. In the last five years, the number of people in the program has jumped from 73,965 to 124,237.

In addition, a record number of people across the U.S. now receive cash benefits. More than 12.5 million Americans, mainly children and their mothers, receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the greatest number since 1981. The number of food stamp recipients also has escalated, from 19.2 million in March 1989 to 22.5 million in March of this year.

``I`ve never been on any kind of welfare program in my life,`` said Vaught, who gets $335 a month and $100 in food stamps. ``I always felt that if I was on welfare, I would be losing my dignity.``

On Los Angeles` jam-packed skid row, Vaught met other people who had lost their jobs through no fault of their own. They pointed out the food lines, steered her toward the shelters. She listened to their lives, and she became angry.

``I was so angry with America, I wrote President Bush a letter. I`ve never seen so much poverty in my life. I see people, their spirits get broken and they give up,`` she said.

``On Skid Row I saw people with degrees, people who lost their jobs, their homes. They don`t have an address, so who wants to hire them? They start to drink. They can`t find their way back. So they give up.``

Last week Vaught was turned down for a job at a brand new hotel, but she`s still hanging on. A recent interview for a receptionist`s job went well, and, if she doesn`t land that one, there`s another at a bank she is applying for.